The royal Parisian botanical garden, the Jardin du Roi, was a jewel in the crown of the French Old Regime, praised by both rulers and scientific practitioners. Yet unlike many such institutions, the Jardin not only survived the French Revolution but by 1800 had become the world'…
"What was a "garden" in medieval and early modern British culture and how was it imagined? How did it change as Europe opened up to the wider world from the 16th century onwards? In a series of fresh approaches to these questions, the contributors offer chapters that identify an…
"From Stonehenge to the royal gardens of Versailles, from the Nazca Lines of Peru to the Forbidden City of Beijing, from the great temple complexes of ancient Egypt to New York's Central Park, people throughout the world from the dawn of civilization have shaped the landscape ar…
Rich spot of earth -- Building the garden -- The garden and its people -- The culture of the garden -- The garden restored, the garden today -- Fruits: artichokes to tomatoes -- Fruits: beans and peas, Jefferson's pulse -- Roots -- Leaves.
Like their penchant for clubs, cricket, and hunting, the planting of English gardens by the British in India reflected an understandable need on the part of expatriates to replicate home as much as possible in an alien environment. In Flora's Empire, Eugenia W. Herbert argues th…